CHAPTER IV. 

 MARSH-WRENS. 



In localities beyond the range of the average pedes- 

 trian, and unheeded by tlie boatmen, as they hurry by, 

 intent upon mere progress, and all unmindful of the 

 half-hidden beauties of reed-grown sliores, there lives, 

 in perfect content, a countless colony of little birds, 

 the very existence of which is known only to a few. 

 The little birds to whicii I refer are the marsh-wrens, 

 the long-billed and the short-billed species. They are 

 strictly aquatic birds, yet never get their feet wet, if 

 they can help it. 



One of the charms of studying the habits of our birds 

 is the well-grounded hope that we may discover some 

 feature of their lives that has been overlooked ; but the 

 marsh-wrens do not vary from what has been written of 

 them. There is no variation from their .ordinary habits 

 — no wandering from the spots they are accustomed to 

 frequent. They live in reeds and rushes growing in 

 and about the water, and, except when migrating, do not 

 wander so far from their home as to have dry land be- 

 neath them. They hold in horror any approach to an 

 anhydrous condition of their habitat ; and along Cross- 

 wicks Creek and in the muddy meadow are as sure to be 

 over water as fishes are to be in it. Here, the reeds grow 

 with such rankness that no foe can follow them ; there- 



